Leaving Chelsea

It's one of those nights where you walk out of a movie with two completely platonic friends, and get smacked square in the face. One of those films about youth — where it begins, where it ends, what it looks like when it clashes with love, but never does it tell you where it goes. So, walking into the tepid summer breathe of the city, with a backpack continually growing heavier with the worry of my mortality, was quite like jumping — naked — into the ocean in a storm.


And then, before I knew it, I was underground and on a train; I saw a young man — late twenties, maybe — with flowers on his lap, and I might have mentioned how no one likes sunflowers. Then another man, also on the younger side, coughed from across the train, and I saw that he was carrying flowers, too. Where do these men come from? It's a perfectly mundane Wednesday in the summertime, so why should two men in the same train car both be carrying flowers? The assumption is that they both have someone special at home — my immediate thought is a lover, or maybe a fiancé, if their fear of commitment has already dissolved. And this digs some kind of hole in my stomach, for a few reasons that I am fairly certain of, and probably several more I am not: 1) I'm jealous; jealous of a concept whose existence makes me feel both trapped by its infinite nature, and elated that it might actually be real, all at the same time — knowing it could very well happen for me, while also fearing that I am past my prime and have already put up too many walls to fall in love again. 2) is the constant, gnawing sensation of panic in every part of me, feeling as though I am wasting my youth, and I am not even gaining the frame of mind that many folks look back on fondly, claiming it shaped them and gave them a direction to follow. 3) the anger or apathetic frustration that even romance has become convoluted due to the sheer numbers of people falling in love every day in this city — and a dark, possibly defeated amusement that it has all been shoved into the gears of the most functional machine on the planet and somehow survives.


And yet — underground, on the subway, in the most sought-after city in the world, I find myself smiling when I see these men and their gifts for their trophies waiting at home.